Flooding

[Toad]

Toad, I worked at Claytor Lake State Park today and it looked as if it had barely rained there. That has to be very close to you.
I am putting together a chainsaw crew to head east over the weekend to open roads if the hurricane does hit eastern VA as they think it will.

The park is probably 15 miles away from the worst of our flooding. Parts of our county had heavy rain but very few issues but other parts were hit hard.
Because I'm vice chairman of our county board of supervisors I'm seeing the worst of it. I spent the day with our emergency coordinator. We had to condemn some homes unfortunately, there were several that had 5 foot of water in the main floor. There were more with a few inches in the main floor and a lot where the basement had flooded. I talked to one farmer who had 240 acres on the river. He said he estimated he had $30,000 in fence completely wiped out. There are also vehicles that have washed off and we haven't found yet.
I was on a conference call today with the state emergency management and they said we could be getting another 10 inches of rain this weekend and 30 mph wind. :bang:

 

[skyhightree1]

Toad - It sucks I remember the flood of 85 and I don't recall that much destruction.
K.T. Let me know if you are going to be this way.. If it does hit I will be working my arse off just like you. I am coming in the house from starting my generators and testing them after I heard the state of emergency declaration. I ordered more chain and will be tuning up the saws could be for nothing but better safe than sorry.

 

[skyhightree1]

 

[skyhightree1]

 

[James T]

I hope the cattle in that area can find some high ground. Ya'll could have one heck of a mess on your hands. A hurricane on already saturated ground is a recipe for disaster. Prepare and stay safe!

 

[Workinonit Farm]

Toad------ I'm just now seeing this thread. So sorry to see all of this! Prayers going your way for sure!

On Tues, we got 5 inches, much needed, the rivers, streams and creeks have been dried up. I'm up in Greene County. My sister, in Nelson County, told me of a bunch of flooding there. Mom and brother in Beford County haven't gotten floods.

What I see in those pics is reminiscent of what I have seen and read about Hurricane Cammile, in Lovingston and the Tye River, back in the late 60's.

I hope you all don't get too much more.

With any luck, this hurrican Juaquin, won't be a devastating storm, but just in case, we too have our generator and chainsaws ready.

This morning I was out working on my water gaps and shoring them up, so to speak.

 

[JW IN VA]

Sorry for your troubles.I've seen a few major floods on our river up here in'85 and Sept'96.In between, we had some smaller ones in '95 and Jan.'96.Some of those pics look like what I remember.Don't leave hay near the flood plain anymore.Always try to get cattle on high ground.
Hope you miss the next one.

 

[jedstivers]

I had no idea it was raining anywhere in the country. Where is all that coming from? No storms came across us. I haven't been watching the weather either as we have had just almost no chance of rain.
Sure hate to see all that

 

[kenny thomas]

I had no idea it was raining anywhere in the country. Where is all that coming from? No storms came across us. I haven't been watching the weather either as we have had just almost no chance of rain.
Sure hate to see all that

Most of the rain we have had this fall has came from the southeast. We almost never get weather from that direction.

 

[Toad]

These storms are coming off the Atlantic which very unusual around here. We have been told to expect major flooding tomorrow and saturday. The last forecast we received was for 5-7 inches over about a 24 hour period. The national guard is now out and we are trying to get additional swift water rescue teams from out of state. Maybe if we can get through the next two days we will be okay. If Juaquin turns inland we will be so screwed next week. Any wind is going to cause incredible tree damage.

 

[kjonesel]

I know that natural disasters such as floods, wildfires, droughts, blizzards, and so on are insurmountable without people unexpectedly showing up to help. In our area a devastating tornado came through when I was a teenager and I recall a team of Amish showing up to rebuild a neighbor's barn. Our church sends volunteers out occasionally to disasters. I am not able to leave my business but I find opportunities all the time to do a service call for free for someone who is appreciative but has no means to pay. Times like these bring out the best in good people.

 

[pdfangus]

I am about 40 miles north west of Richmond...50 or 60 miles east of Charlottesville and maybe 35 miles southwest of Fredericksburg.

While other parts of the state have been washing away.....our area is getting some much needed relief from a late summer drought....the summer started off good until the week of the fourth of july...we had two inches of rain that week and then the faucet shut off....
scattered light showers since then with pretty hot and dry weather...

Corn is yielding pretty good and corn guys are happy with yields and unhappy with the price...Double crop beans are not going to amount to much...pretty decent pods but the beans are only the size of BBs. Early full season beans are a mixed lot....some good, some fair and some poor.....

There has been enough grass to keep the cattle alive without a lot of hay feeding but that was it....my later planted summer cover crops have been a bust while the early summer cover crops were very good....Cool season covers planted over the last thirty to forty days have done little other than feed birds...

the rain this week has shown me that there are still osme seed out there and things are turning green now....While it has been raining almost steadily here for 36 hours now as of last evening there was only 1.7 inches in my gauge ......We had 2.7 inches early in the week ....last couple of days periods of heavy rain with steady light rain ....have not looked at the gauge yet this morning....but we are not having any runoff here...not even puddles....it might puddle during a downpour but then it goes right into the ground....

I am blessed because the mountains are getting torrential rain and trying to wash to the sea.....and the sea has heavy rain and high wind and is trying to get to the mountains...the wind pushing sea water up the tidal rivers is causing heavy flooding in those areas as well....

All of this without the hurricane which is now predicted to stay well off shore....but that could change too....the weather liars are not nearly as good at telling us what will happen as they are at telling us what just happened....two days ago they were inciting near full blown panic and now they are saying trust us everything will be fine....they all should run for political office....

 

[Toad]

Thankfully the storm we are currently in seems to been hyped completely out of proportion. I suspect it is because they didn't give adequate warning for the storm on Tuesday. I think by the first part of next week I will be able to get back to actual farm work.

 

[kenny thomas]

Glad to hear you guys are all ok. I had crews ready to head toward the coast if needed. We released the overhead teams today so im pretty sure my crews will not be needed either. We got a good very slow rain over the last several days. Maybe 2" this week.